Deliberate, gloriously Queer CampâŠ.My absolutely favorite camp movie of all time!
"The Hallmark of Camp is the spirit of extravagance." Susan Sontag, Notes on Camp, 1964.
If you must know how to read it, read onâŠ!
"Camp can be described as a negotiated reading strategy that ironically calls into question certain aspects of mainstream taste, and especially how those aspects of taste relate to issues of gender and sexuality. As a style of production, camp texts are those that encode a self-aware irony into their very fabric, assuring that audiences will find them (deliberately) "over-the-top" or "bad."
http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Academy-Awards-Crime-Films/Camp.html
The camp aspects even apply to the soundtrack. On that note, it would have been extremely interesting to discuss camp in media other than film such as music.
It is still hard for me to wrap my head around hardcore vs punk. I understand that hardcore in a sub-genre of punk. Hardcore can be related to badness and badness can be considered as an aesthetically unbearable style. The distinction between the two may be very clear cut for some people who are...
Hardcore is to reincorporate punk outside of the mainstream. Many punk bands became mainstream, countering their counterculture goals. To get punk out of the mainstream, hardcore takes over by becoming less accessible with faster and louder music.
nerd kitsch applied to cars, fashion and clipboards. The circuit board texture is an interesting choice for a fashion texture as it is a visual fingerprint of digital technology that easily is signified to people. Iâm sure soon enough this circuit-board texture will signify a more vintage technology aesthetic for fashion. The circuit board texture also looks like little cities much like our own modern cityscapes.Â
After our conversation about bricolage. I immediately thought about Pinterest. It is like an entire site full of appropriation and do-it-yourselfs. We may have talked about punks but I always like to take what weâve learned and relate it to my own taste. In recent years something I have noticed that has constantly been reappropriated is the mason jar. It is something that many people have taken and made their own. It has made a statement.Â
This is just one example but the DIY world has been booming lately and it is the perfect example of bricolage because a lot of the time, it is taking things from a bunch of items and bringing it together. DIYâs are one of my favourite things, I love seeing the way that people take things and change them to make it their own. Or use everyday items to create an item that would regularly be very expensive.Â
The mason jar has become an interesting artifact. On my dash, I showed them being stood on wine glass bottoms. This shows that all tastes can be completely omnivorous when reappropriated.
Dirty Jobs works well with this weekâs topic in terms of shows about dirt (in the literal sense). This meme also associates the idea of dirt and class. On makeover format shows about dirt, it is about cleaning the dirt with a focus on the victim as working class. However, Dirty Jobs highlights the working class identity in that they have to do dirty things to earn money but should be respected for the extent that they go to to make a living. Instead of trying to train the working class, they are highlighting the conditions of the working class.Â
This also highlights that dirt can be used as a form of authenticity. As if referencing our hidden human biology once in a while makes you more accessible and relatable.
Disneylandâs social clubs are made up of young people so in love with the amusement park that theyâve tattooed themselves with its logos. Theyâve been accused of smoking weed and starting fights, but
This is quite the unexpected spin on the punk subculture.Â
The well-known Liberal pundit and news entertainment host Bill Maher thinks Facebook and personalized news is making you stupider.Â
As he displays old pictures of a previous generation riding the subway, he notes how they are all reading newspapers; an important time when mainstream journalism platforms like The Washington Post uncovered Watergate and challenged society with groundbreaking news.Â
Nowadays âeveryone is playing Angry Birds and no one is getting news, and if they are, they are getting it from Facebook where 1/3 of adults now get their newsâŠPaper [the new app from Facebook] tracks the news you are interested in and gives you more of that news and less of everything else, never burdening you with contradictory information or telling you anything new. Thatâs what makes it news!â Maher rants to the his viewers about the detriments of the personalized news system.
"Newspapers may be old fashioned but here is what we are losing if never see them, they are trying to tell you what is important, not what is important to you. You may not read the whole newspaper, but you at least see headlines making you aware that something is going on outside of your micro-targeted world of fashion or music or wickens or zombies or whatever you are interested in".
This new system of news and information consumption has us living in a vacuum, where we are only faced with cultural information surrounding the sports teams, TV shows, and hottest bands we are into.
Now that I think about itâŠmy feed is looking pretty good right now. No depressing news about global warming, Ukraine or Syria. Just updates on my beloved Toronto Maple Leafs and information on the Coachella concert coming up. I love my feed. It knows what Iâm into.
I find it interesting that as a liberal, he would be against a public sphere style of news and communication. This sort of argument supports centralization, which certainly limits access to information.
Although I do love a lot of different reality shows, including reality shows in the makeover genre, I have never been a fan of âThe Biggest Loserâ. Im not sure what it is about the show but I have never found it entertaining. The purpose of these makeover shows are to educate while at the same time entertain audiences. I think that a lot of Americans can have sympathy for the contestants on the show and thats why it is so appealing to them. Many people do struggle with their weight, while it may not be as serious as the people on the show, it is still a rising issue in North America as a whole. I think the problem with this show is how unrealistic it is. The quality of instruction on this show is poor. They have the contestants on such serious diets and insane workout regimes that no normal person would be able to maintain in everyday life. They often also give these people reconstructive surgery to get rid of all the excess skin- something that most Americans would not be able to get even if they did loose all that weight. I think thats the main problem with these instruction reality TV shows, they just arenât realistic.
What's worse is that it perpetuates many ideologies such as diet being a feminine way to lose weight. While the masculine, structured workout sessions are shown as "superior."
Neil DeGrasse Tyson doesnât like considering himself as a high-brow âbetter than youâ member of society, just because of his prestigious resume and notorious global reputation as one of the worldâs best astro-physicists.Â
Even as he sits here in this interview, looking like quite the dandy in his tailored suit, beautiful black sweater, while he swirls his red wine around his nose before taking a sip; he discusses how his knowledge and views on the universe arenât mean to bash other beliefs and and make people feel stupid.
Science, in itâs very essence, is extremely high-brow. DeGrasse Tyson states that he doesnât want his show to bash other peopleâs beliefs and make them feel stupid, his intentions is to use it simply for people to open up their minds.Â
He is extremely passionate about his work, science and the universe, and I believe him when he says he simply just wants to educate people. However, upon watching Cosmoâs, his new TV show which explores the universe and possible theories of human origins, I realized it is the most unintentionally high-brow show I have ever seen.
The show makes you as a single human being feel so small, by the time the episode was over, I have never felt like my life was so irrelevant before. Religious folk and creationists are in an uproar over this show, as it uses scientifically based information and findings to discredit everything they have ever believed in, working to place them lower and lower on the richter scale of social importance. The show even delves into the everyday habits of humans, almost as to laugh at us by showing our everyday stresses are so irrelevant to the big picture of humanity and our overall place in the endless universe. By the end of the first episode, I felt like I was subtly trying to be shamed for falling into the societal trap of placing excessive importance on money, and fake consumer goods, when there is an endless universe with answers to our very existence out there waiting to be explored.
The exact same thing happens with anything Bill Nye is in. He always appeals to a large audience through his charisma, but as you said, science is traditionally high-brow.
This is so funny. The article for today touches a lot on the fact that trash reality television, constantly showing us the matter and metaphor of dirty, creates audience anxiety, causing us to want to look away and stop watching. However with shows such as What not to Wear and How clean is your house, you are captivated by the first scene and therefore you just HAVE to watch until the end to see the final transformed product.Â
I find myself in this situation all the time - watching television shows that I actually have no interest in yet I end up dedicating a full hour to seeing how it ends or where it will lead. This is especially relevant for the MTV Network; their endless array of reality shows is mind-numbingly captivating that all of my roommates are guilty of watching such âtrash televisionâ every week. In the end, I think such shows will always exist and be popularized regardless of their quality and taste; they are so bad theyâre good.Â
I am definitely an out-spoken hater of reality TV, but I feel like everyone can agree to this, myself included. Iâve definitely walked into a room more than once where a laughably bad reality TV show is on and I find myself hanging around longer than expected. So true!
Even those that don't watch it can actively participate in its hatred. I have heard of things from Jersey Shore and criticise them. It furthers the active exposure of the media type.
It is interesting that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is considered âtrashyâ due to its attempt to appeal to the masses. Joss Whedon himself did not like the film but what about the television show? Is this trash as well due to its format? (it is accessible to a large population). If people enjoy it,...
I feel that there needs to be a negotiation between good and bad so that there is a spectrum. As with volume needing a quiet to be loud, there needs to be a bad in cinema for there to be a good.
I find that foodie culture has become very complex in North America. As someone who loves food, I have been watching the food network since I was a kid and in turn have watched in evolve. Back when I was a child, most of the featured chefs on the Food Network, could be called connoisseurs they were experts in what they did (cooking) and that is why they had their own shows, to teach people their high class skills in cooking. They were looked at as the best and represented a very exclusionary discourse in that many of the meals they made used more expensive ingredients and higher class meals were made. A shift then started to happen as we saw the rise of more wholesome cooking shows that were geared towards a stay at home mom or a busy household. These shows reprsented a more inclusionary discourse in that they appealed to more audiences as more people could relate to this kind of cooking. Today we have evolved to a whole different kind of show on the Food Network. Man vs. Food is an example of one of these shows. The host is never cooking himself, rather seems to be an expert in taste testing different foods around America. None of these foods or restaurants would be considered high class, they are more affordable, mass proportions, unhealthy foods featured on the show. The show isnât based on cooking anymore, but rather the fun of eating out. These types of shows pose as an alternative to snobbish connotations of gourmet.
What is interesting is that many of the restaurants they go to can be very expensive, too. An example of this (I think another student used it, too) is The Works in downtown Saint Catharines. It is not hard to get an extremely expensive bill there. What makes the foodie so interesting is their mainstream appeal, but also the fact that they do exhibit many features of high-brow connoisseurship.Â
Not at your local Empire Theatre, thatâs for sure. After doing a presentation about American Smart Cinema and then looking up the movie listings at the Penn Centre - I was really discouraged to go see something.
The only choices right now are pretty much: Non-stop - another generic action film...
I feel like the new smart films require looking around, and typically hold a paracinematic aesthetic. A good example of this is Primer. It is a smart movie, but its low budget and cult following is very paracinematic.
Does everyone remember this? The iconic moment when Kanye West introduced his âWhite Accentâ Kanye said himself that he had to cultivate the accent, as he felt fashion corporations wouldnât take him seriously otherwiseâŠ. he shouldâve went more flamboyant - Richard Dyer reference.Â
This also exhibits his modern dandyism, as he sets trends and absorbs them into his own style. The fact that he is even talking about his style and how to be like him shows this.
I think one of the interesting things about this course is that, now at the end of the semester, it seems that I find it possible to label almost any kind of media. Previously, I would have labeled Spring Breakers as a terribly written and executed movie but who knew that it was actually...
The issue is that camp and paracinema are so similar. They both have the same "bad" aesthetics to them. Paracinema doesn't even have to be naive camp, it can also be deliberate (which I think Spring Breakers was). The difference is that camp typically doesn't get its elitist cult following. The followers of paracinema are as elitist as your typical wine snob. This separation is almost entirely social.
Is Jesus kitschy? Itâs a genuine question. It seems like a lot of religious decorative items kind of fit into the description of kitsch. Cheesy, tacky, whatever you want to call it, I personally feel like a lot of these kind of objects are âcuteâ to the religious follower, and borderline frightening to anyone else.
